Mirror Image

“Tate said you managed to say some words today,” he said. “That’s great news. We’ll all be glad to hear what you’ve got to say once you can talk again.”

Avery knew Tate wouldn’t be glad to hear what she had to say. He would want to know why she hadn’t written down her name, why she had let him go on believing that she was his wife, even after she’d regained enough coordination in her hand to use the pencil on the tablet.

She wanted to know that herself.

Anxiety over it brought tears to her eyes. Jack immediately stood and began backing toward the door. “Well, it’s getting late, and I’m facing that long drive home. Good luck, Carole. You coming, Tate?”

“Not quite yet, but I’ll walk you to the lobby.” After telling her that he would be back in a few minutes, he accompanied his brother from the room.

“I think I upset her by talking about your trip,” Jack remarked.

“She’s been touchy the last few days.”

“You’d think she’d be glad she was getting her voice back, wouldn’t you?”

“I guess it’s frustrating to try and speak plainly when you can’t.” Tate moved to the tinted glass doors of the exclusive clinic and pulled one open.

“Uh, Tate, have you noticed something weird when she writes?”

“Weird?”

He moved aside to admit a pair of nurses into the lobby, followed by a man carrying an arrangement of copper chrysanthemums. Jack stepped outside, but used his hand to prevent the door from closing behind him.

“Carole’s right-handed, isn’t she?”

“Yeah.”

“So why is she writing with her left hand?” As soon as Jack posed the puzzling question, he shrugged. “I just thought it was odd.” His hand fell to his side and the hydraulic door began to close. “See you at home, Tate.”

“Drive carefully.”

Tate stood staring after his brother until someone else approached the door and looked at him inquiringly. He pivoted on his heels and thoughtfully retraced his steps toward Carole’s room.

* * *

While Tate was gone, Avery thought about how he had changed. She had sensed a difference in his attitude more than a week ago. He still paid her regular visits, but they were no longer on a daily basis. At first she had excused this, knowing that his campaign was in full swing.

Whenever he came, he still brought flowers and magazines. Now that she could eat solid foods, he brought her junk food to augment the hospital’s excellent, but boring cuisine. He’d even had a VCR installed and had supplied her with a variety of movies to help entertain her. But he was often withdrawn and moody, guarded in what he said to her. He never stayed for very long.

As Carole’s face became more distinct, Tate became more distant.

He hadn’t brought Mandy to see her, either. She had printed Mandy’s name, followed by a question mark, on the tablet and held it up to him. He had shrugged. “I thought the visits were probably doing her more harm than good. You’ll have plenty of time to spend with her once you’re back home.”

The insensitive words had wounded her. Mandy’s visits had become highlights in her monotonous existence. On the other hand, it was probably better that he had suspended them. She was growing too attached to the child and wanted desperately to help see her through this crisis in her young life. Since she wouldn’t have that opportunity, it was wise to sever any emotional bonds now.

The attachment she had developed for Tate was more complex and would be considerably harder to sever when she moved out of his world and back into her own.

At least she would be taking something back with her: the ingredients of a juicy inside story on the man running for the U.S. Senate whom someone wanted murdered.

Avery’s journalistic curiosity ran rampant. What had been amiss in the Rutledges’ marriage? Why had Carole wanted her husband dead? She wanted to exhaust all the possibilities until she arrived at the truth. Telling that truth might lift her out of the muck she’d made of her professional life. Yet it left a bad taste in her mouth to think about broadcasting that truth.

Tate Rutledge’s problems belonged to her now just as much as they did to him. She hadn’t asked for them; they’d been imposed on her. But she couldn’t just turn her back on them. For some bizarre reason that defied explanation, she felt compelled to make up for Carole’s shortcomings.

The one time she had extended a compassionate hand to him, he had emphatically rebuffed her, but the strife between Tate and Carole went beyond the normal marriage in trouble. There was another almost malevolent dimension to it. He treated her as one might a caged wild beast. He saw to all her needs, but from a careful distance. His approach was mistrustful, as though her behavior couldn’t be depended on.

As Avery knew, Tate’s wariness of his wife was well-founded. Carole, along with another individual, had plotted to kill him. How and why were the questions that haunted her more than any others.

The troubling thoughts were temporarily shelved when he returned from escorting Jack out. However, her welcoming smile wavered as he approached her chair. He was scowling.